The First Collier
Book Jacket
Rating:
Tags: General, Juvenile Fiction, Children: Grades 4-6, Chapter Books, Readers, Readers - Chapter Books, Intermediate, Readers - Intermediate
EDITORIAL REVIEW:
It is a time of Legends and a time of chaos. Warlords vie for power and marauding outlaws roam the land. Good King Hrath and his queen, Siv, noble Spotted Owls struggle to keep peace in their kingdom. Grank, noble Spotted Owl, friend and supporter of King Hrath, has exiled himself to Beyond the Beyond, where he has developed his firesight and learns how to work with embers, fire and how to forge metals. He is the First Collier. Deep in a volcano in the farthest reaches of Beyond the Beyond, he discovers a magical Ember but fears its awful powers will be misused and hides it again. (continued)
“Where there are legends, there can be hope. Where there are legends, there can be dreams of knightly owls, from a kingdom called Ga’Hoole, who will rise each night into the blackness and perform noble deeds. Owls who speak no words but true ones. Owls whose only purpose is to right all wrongs, to make strong the weak, mend the broken, vanquish the proud, and make powerless those who abuse the frail. With hearts sublime, they take flight…”
Guardians of Ga’Hoole:
The First Collier
by
Kathryn Lasky
To Craig Walker, the Guardian
K. L.
Table of Contents
Excerpt
Title Page
Dedication
Kingdoms of S’yrthgar
Kingdoms of N’yrthgar
Prologue
CHAPTER ONE Grank I Am
CHAPTER TWO I Discover Firesight
CHAPTER THREE Fengo
CHAPTER FOUR BONK!
CHAPTER FIVE A Strange Interlude
CHAPTER SIX When We Were Very Young
CHAPTER SEVEN The Grog Tree
CHAPTER EIGHT The Nacht Ga’
CHAPTER NINE The Eyes of Fengo
CHAPTER TEN My Best Intentions
CHAPTER ELEVEN The Ice Cliff Palace
CHAPTER TWELVE To the Bitter Sea
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Blood Snowflakes
CHAPTER FOURTEEN The Arrival of Theo
CHAPTER FIFTEEN A Wounded Queen
CHAPTER SIXTEEN A Polar Bear Named Svenka
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Vanished!
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Svenka Tells a Tale of Death
CHAPTER NINETEEN The First Battle Claws
CHAPTER TWENTY A Stubborn Owl Gets More Stubborn
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Siv Learns to Fly Again
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO First Blood
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Theo Returns
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR A Haggish Lord
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Odd Stirrings
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX The Longest Night
EPILOGUE
The GUARDIANS of GA’HOOLE
OWLS and others from the GUARDIANS of GA’HOOLE SERIES
A peek at THE GUARDIANS of GA’HOOLE Book Ten: The Coming of Hoole
Copyright
Kingdoms of S’yrthgar
Kingdoms of N’yrthgar
Prologue
On a branch outside a hollow of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, three owls hunched against the first blasts of an early winter gale. One was an Elf Owl, one a Great Gray, and one a Burrowing Owl. They were known collectively as the Band, but their fourth member, the Barn Owl Soren, was in the hollow of his beloved old teacher, Ezylryb. And Ezylryb was dying.
The little Elf Owl Gylfie huddled close to Twilight and the huge Great Gray extended his wing to shelter her from the wind. Digger crept closer to them on the branch. Although Soren was inside and they were out, it was as if they were connected. These four owls who had known one another for so long could never really be separated.
“I feel it all,” Gylfie said, and she blinked. “It’s almost as if our gizzards are one.”
Twilight and Digger nodded. “All of our gizzards,” Digger whispered. And they, indeed, were feeling in that most sensitive of all owl organs the terrible grief that was racking their dear friend’s gizzard as he stood by his old mentor. “I know it sounds silly,” Digger said. “But it’s almost like being orphaned again. And for Soren, it really must feel that way. I mean, after all, he is Ezylryb’s ward.”
Twilight blinked. “I don’t remember being orphaned. I can’t even remember my parents. I think I hatched by myself.”
If he says something about the orphan school of tough learning and how he taught himself everything, I’ll yarp, Gylfie thought.
But Twilight didn’t. “And even though I can’t remember any of that,” he continued, “I think I can almost feel what it would have been like to have a father, to be a son. Poor Soren!”
Inside the hollow, Soren might have dimly sensed the tremors in his dear friends’ gizzards, but, in truth, he let himself be swept to some unreachable place in a tidal wave of grief. His glistening black eyes turned dull. A peculiar stillness took hold of his gizzard. He was numb, almost yeep.
Octavia, Ezylryb’s nest-maid snake, was coiled up in a corner weeping as her old master lay dying. Coryn, the new king of the great tree and leader of the Guardians, shifted nervously from one foot to the other. The young Barn Owl felt odd being in the old ryb’s hollow. He felt out of place. He was new to the tree and had no history with Ezylryb, as did Octavia and his uncle, Soren.
Octavia had arrived with the Whiskered Screech countless years before and had served as his nest-maid and closest confidante as long as any owl could remember. Soren had been adopted by Ezylryb as his ward when he was quite young. Ezylryb had sensed the remarkable genius for leadership in the young Barn Owl even before Soren was aware of his own natural abilities. Coryn, though he was king, felt he did not belong here at this moment. But Ezylryb had summoned him along with Soren. Now the old ryb raised one mangled foot, and with it he beckoned the two Barn Owls to his side.
“Step closer, lads. Step closer,” he whispered hoarsely.
It made Coryn feel good that Ezylryb had called him “lad.” The old owl had used no title except “lad” to address the young king since he had arrived a short time before.
Now Coryn and Soren bent close to the old ryb’s beak. “Listen closely to what I have to say.”
“Yes, Ezylryb, I am listening,” Coryn replied.
“Yes, Cap,” Soren whispered. This was the last time he would call the old ryb “Cap.” Everyone in the weather interpretation chaw called Ezylryb “Cap,” for he had been the ultimate captain of the winds, teaching them how to ride the baggywrinkles and navigate the troughs and scuppers of a gale. Oh, what wild flights they’d had—through every kind of weather, every sort of boisterous wind. And always singing those riotous songs! Is that what he would miss most? Soren thought. Or perhaps he would most miss the talks that went long into the day; or the times in the library when Ezylryb would direct him to a book with that mangled talon. Great Glaux, he had learned so much from the old Whiskered Screech. So much!
Ezylryb tried to raise himself up from the downy pillow.
“Ezylryb,” Soren said gently, “rest.”
“No, Soren. I can’t rest until I tell you both this. I know we have defeated the owls of St. Aggie’s, destroyed their great stores of flecks. And, thank Glaux, the Pure Ones have been decimated. But who knows what evil might be lying in wait?” Ezylryb’s breath became more labored. “The ember has returned to the Great Tree.” His voice was now barely a whisper. Soren and his nephew tipped their heads closer to the old ryb’s beak. “It brings great promise…and great danger. Ignorance is perhaps the source of all evil. Forget battle claws, forget ice swords and ice daggers. Knowledge is the most powerful weapon of all. It is vitally imp
ortant that you know how we came to be, the stories even older than the cantos, the legends of Ga’Hoole. You must learn from that brilliant prince, that knight in the times of magic, who became our king Hoole, and whose ember, you, Coryn, and you alone, retrieved from the volcanoes of Beyond the Beyond. You must both read the oldest of the legends.”
“We’ll go to the library at once, sir,” Coryn replied.
“No, no.” He shook that mangled foot with more vigor than he had shown in a long time. “They are not in the library. They are here in a secret place in this hollow.” He nodded at Soren. “He knows.”
Yes, Soren did know. Within this hollow, there was a secret chamber that Soren and Gylife had discovered years before. It was where they had found Ezylryb’s old battle claws, the ones that Ezylryb gave to Soren when he made Soren his ward. And there were books in that chamber and ancient scrolls from Ezylryb’s homeland, the ancient Northern Kingdoms.
“Read them. Read them and learn,” Ezylryb said. “Read them and know where we came from…and what we must guard against. The future is yours if…”
But he never finished what he had begun to say. His amber eyes slid back in his head. His beak was still. There was one last shallow breath. Then a light breeze blew through the hollow and with it a spirit passed. The old ryb was dead.
It was not until three days later after the Final ceremonies that Octavia led Coryn and Soren into the small hidden chamber behind Ezylryb’s main hollow. Soren fetched the first of three ancient tomes. The two owls bent over the dusty old book. They had to squint to make out the faded gold letters of the title inscribed on the mouseleather cover. THE LEGENDS OF GA’HOOLE, and then beneath this in smaller letters: THE FIRST COLLIER.
Soren opened the book and looked at his young nephew. They would read it together, slowly, carefully. And although they would both be learning together, Soren knew that now he must become the ryb, the teacher, the guide to this young owl who was king.
CHAPTER ONE
Grank I Am
Call me Grank. I am an old owl now as I set down these words but this story must be told, or at least begun before I pass on. Times are different now than they were when I was young. I was born into a time of chaos and everlasting wars. It was a time of magic and strange enchantments, a time of warring clans and warring kingdoms, a time of savagery and evil spirits, and worst of all, a time of hagsfiends. The days of old King H’rathmore, the High King of all of the N’yrthghar, were dark days, indeed. Lords and chieftains and petty princes raged against him and against one another, fracturing these kingdoms as surely as the summer breaks the frozen seas into the bergs and shards and floes of ice.
The lust for war carried from one generation to the next until there seemed no escaping it. When King H’rathmore died his young son, H’rath, then became High King. And I, being of noble birth, and dearest friend of King H’rath and his mate, Queen Siv, was drawn in deeper and deeper to this world of blood and battle, of intrigue and anarchy. It was not to my liking—unlike young King H’rath I was not the fiercest of soldiers. But I did serve him well as a confidant, and often as emissary to a restless clan or disaffected lord. I was, in truth, better with words than with the ice weapons with which the owls of the N’yrthghar fought. Better at planning strategy than rallying troops for battle. I had neither an affinity nor a temperament for this world of blood and battle, of intrigue and anarchy. And yet I felt duty bound to stay at my young king’s side to help him unite his fractured kingdom, to resist and perhaps annihilate the hagsfiends and their insidious magic.
But even chaos has its rhythms and ongoing wars have their idle interludes, their moments of fragile peace. And it was during these times that I often ventured off by myself to explore matters far removed from those of war. You see, Good Owl, you must understand that even though H’rath, Siv, and I grew up the closest of friends and shared so much from the time before they became mates, I always was, and have remained, my own owl. I realized early on that I was one of those creatures destined to be alone, never to have a mate. The one owl whom I had desired, the one for whom my gizzard fairly sang was already…well, no need to talk of that now. I will simply say it was not to be.
CHAPTER TWO
I Discover Firesight
It was during the early part of H’rath’s reign when a period of fragile peace had been achieved that I first took wing across the Sea of Kraka—or the Everwinter Sea as some called it—to that distant territory known as Beyond the Beyond. I wanted to see that fiery part of the world where it was said that the tops of mountains opened up like the mouths of enormous beasts and licked the sky with tongues of fire.
You see, fire had fascinated me from an early age. I saw things in fire that disturbed and intrigued me. And I found that for me to study fire was a way of steadying the gizzard and concentrating the mind. Whenever I suffered a dreariness of the gizzard I took quietly to the wing to lose myself in the sky I so cherished, and if I was lucky, to find when I looked down on the earth a fire, or a place to build one.
Almost immediately upon my first arrival in the Beyond, I felt my discontent ease. In the course of years, I would make many trips to the Beyond. And during those visits I enjoyed the hearty companionship of the dire wolves, the strange, loping creatures who had found their way to that fiery place some years before. I counted as a good friend their leader, the immense silvery wolf named Fengo. With Fengo by my side, I spent hours studying the eruptions of the volcanoes and, in particular, the trajectories of the embers that fell from the glowing fountains of fire. You must understand that at the time the world knew fire only for its destructive powers. In the kingdoms of N’yrthghar we did not even have a word for fire, for we lived in a nearly treeless place where lightning, when it struck, struck only rock or ice.
And so it was not through flame that I experienced my first visions. It happened on an early spring day. My parents had brought my sister and me out to learn the rudiments of First Flight. We were perched on a sloping expanse of ice on a part of the glacier popular for early lessons in takeoff and landing. The sun was quite fierce for that time of the year on the glacier. A shard of ice that stuck straight up from the ice beds had caught the sun, and the brightness was so dazzling that the air seemed to spin with a radiance I had never seen before. In the midst of this radiance, I began to see things. This struck me as odd, for owls are supposed to see best in darkness, but I was seeing beyond any darkness into a light that seemed to open up new realms of vision.
And what exactly did I see? Myself flying, doing everything my da had told us about lofting and ice hopping, and catching a breeze by tipping our primaries just so. The countless instructions came together within this vision and suddenly I knew in my gizzard how to fly. I lifted off the ground in one swift motion. My da and mum said they had never seen anything like it. My sister, Yurta, cried with envy. But oddly enough, I soon forgot about those visions over the long winter when the sun never rose above the horizon.
Forgot about them until I experienced my first forest fire. Only then did I remember what I had seen in the dancing radiance of the sun upon the ice. I was with my mother on an island in the Bitter Sea when a summer storm hit hard. A nearby tree was struck by lightning and burst into flame. My mother and I fled. I say fled but, in truth, I was almost transfixed by the fire. For it was in that sea of raging flames that I had what I have come to think of as my first true vision. It was a vision not of fire the destroyer but fire the creator. I saw not feathers being burned or animals screeching in terror, but owls pulling from the flames useful things that I had no names for, but which I knew could be put to good service. In the reflections of the sun on the ice shards, I had seen the present and the secrets of flight. But in the flames, it was as if I had glimpsed the future, or what might be. It was with this in mind that I set myself to the task of discovering the benefits, the blessings of fire. I intended to learn all I could and I was determined to capture an ember and with it explore how I might kindle a fire, and tame
it as well.
Since forest fires were hard to come by in the N’yrthghar, I returned to the ice beds in a far corner of the Hrath’ghar glacier. It was spring once more, and the strength of the sun would be gaining every day through summer, which, though very short, was a radiant time of year. For the ice of the glacier never melted, and those reflections that had first ambushed me in a confusing crossfire of bouncing light when I was learning to fly did bear some resemblance to flames. I thought that they might help me delve deeper into my visions, this “magic” of seeing the present and, perhaps, the future and the past.
For me, it was a most wonderful spring and summer. Flying to that corner of the glacier was great fun as well. The katabats, those special winds of the N’yrthghar, were wonderfully boisterous that spring. I would sometimes go out of my way to ride the thermal drafts of the smee holes, those steam vents far to the east of the glacier near the Bay of Fangs, which offered a bouncing good flight. And the tiny beautiful flowers that dared to bloom at the edge of the avalanche and on the icy rim of the glacier delighted me. Their blossoms made gay the white and ice-bound world of the N’yrthghar. During those long, nearly nightless days of summer, illuminated by the tireless sun, I would immerse myself in the reflections bouncing off this dazzling whiteness. I wandered through radiant forests made of light shards and reflected beams; I found the bright shadows of all manner of creatures and friends, and the fleeting images of events, both past and future. I came to understand my visions more fully. For one thing, I understood that this was not a phenomenon that I could simply will to happen. The visions rarely came on demand. They came as they pleased and, perhaps, as I might best learn from them. But still they were not fire. They were not flame. They were merely shards of reflected light—never as clear and crisp as the images I had seen in the forest fire.